


How to cook Paella

by instinctively



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: A Bit of Fluff, Carlos doesn't want to be famous, Consent Issues, M/M, Tags Are Hard, Youtuber!Cecil, cecilos - Freeform, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 09:03:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2263800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/instinctively/pseuds/instinctively
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I just wanted you to have some fans, too, Carlos."</p>
<p>In which Cecil is addicted to video blogging and Carlos... well, isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to cook Paella

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, before you start reading, I want you to know that this is nowhere near perfect, but I just couldn't wait any longer to post it since I had the idea for this AU, and I might write a second chapter some time in the future.
> 
> Enjoy. Or don't. I mean, it's your life, do whatever you want, right? ;)

It was a normal Sunday morning in Night Vale. Carlos was sitting around in his pyjamas that consisted of a tee shirt and boxers, reading and enjoying the feeling of not having to work today.

Occasionally, he sipped at his coffee, or turned the pages of the book he had borrowed from Neill, one of his scientists. It was about the history of Night Vale’s Clock Tower, and even though it had been approved by the City Council and lacked pictures as well as credibility, it was a rather interesting lecture.

Right when he had reached the chapter “What are the tower’s intentions to teleport?” Cecil walked in. With his camera in one hand, he was filming around the living room, and especially the sofa.

It was a few days ago that, after long consideration and comparing different prizes on his part, and puppy-eyed begging on Cecil’s, they had purchased the old-fashioned floral couch he was currently sitting on.

And he even remembered how the other man had babbled something about not being able to wait to show his viewers the new furniture, so he probably should have expected something like that.

But he hadn’t.

"So, this is how we arranged the couch I told you about, listeners, doesn’t it just look _amazing_? And look who is there, say hi Carlos!" Cecil cheered and turned the camera towards him to capture his reaction.

Not matching the happy expression a bit, the scientist crossed his arms over his chest. He surely wasn’t the most reserved person when it came to nudity, and wearing boxers and shirt he wasn’t exactly nude, but being that exposed on camera still made him uncomfortable.

"Cecil, I told you not to film me all the time, and I’m not even dressed yet," he huffed and shot him an annoyed look.

The radio host frowned, worrying his bottom lip, and put the camera down, his violett tattoos starting to move faster in agitation. He sat down next to his boyfriend.

"Carlos, sweety, you gotta understand, I- I promised them an apartment tour and I didn’t get round to it soo long, but now with the new couch and all, I just thought it was a good time."

He curled up into the scientist’s side, glancing up at him innocently with one violet and two grey eyes. Carlos felt his expression soften and his anger melt slowly.

Damn, with Cecil he never managed to be angry for long.

"Yeah, I understand that and it’s amazing that you want to show them the sofa but," he sighed before he continued, "I just don’t want my face all over YouTube again."

It wasn’t the first time Cecil had filmed him and later shared it with the internet without a word of permission being exchanged, and it bugged him.

They'd had a rather big fight about it when the radio host had first uploaded a video where Carlos could be seen in the background. He'd been completely oblivious about it until the video turned out to be the most viewed on Cecil's channel and he had found out.

That had been a few months ago, they had argued and they had made up and all had been fine, but apparently the radio host still didn’t get it.

It wasn’t that he didn’t tolerate Cecil’s popularity as local celebrity and since recently quite famous youtuber, no, he was fine with that.

Trying hard to be a great boyfriend, Carlos watched almost all of the videos that were coming up on his phone’s news feed. And there were many, from the ‘20 Illegal Things About Me’ tag over simple ‘Ask Cecil Anything Just Not About Peacocks’ to his most recent video ‘The Whispers Challange’ with John Peters - you know, the farmer? - and Hiram McDaniels.

He loved Cecil’s videos, they were extraordinary and funny to watch, and the background music was always great and catchy

But a few weeks ago, the radio host had discovered the joy of a second channel that he only used for uploading Daily Vlogs.

At first, Carlos hadn’t even known what ‘vlogging’ meant. He had asked Google and later his fellow scientists, and he was told it was a contraction of ‘video’ and ‘blogging’, which at second thought was kind of obvious.

He had gotten used to his boyfriend speaking to the camera while Carlos was driving, or preparing dinner. Actually, he had found comfort in the steady murmur next to him, it had become soothing somehow, the kind he felt when he was listening to Cecil's radio broadcast.

Which he was, daily.

And to watch the published video later, and to remember all the little things that had been cut out in the process of editing, it made him feel special, confidential, even.

But as the other man was a person that liked to stick to the rules as much as possible, he turned out to be very strict about the term ‘ _Daily_ Vlogs’, and to Carlos it just felt like documenting his daily choice of clothes or what he’d fed Khoshekh that day had lately become a replacement for talking to him.

He looked at Cecil, his tattoos now floating at their usual pace, his third eye on his forehead glaring up at him with a deep purple shimmer.

"I just thought you liked it, you know? I mean, they _love_ you," he said with a smile and caressed the words he spoke as he always did. "I just wanted you to have some fans, too."

He laced his fingers in the dark hair on the side of his head affectionately.

The scientist would have been self-conscious about the fact that the black at his temples was, as time went, more and more streaked by grey strands, if Cecil wouldn't praise it on a daily basis.

Although his frown was gone now, Carlos could hear the dissappointment in his boyfriend's voice and his hand flew to his cheek that he stroked with one thumb.

Of course, he didn’t want to be the man’s second choice, but more than that he didn’t want to upset him.

"I know that you only want the best, and that’s amazing," Carlos said, hoping to sound reassuring. "But I just wished you and me, we had a little more privacy, you know? Last week Old Woman Josie asked me for a recipe for the Paella I made the other day because it was in your video and I- I mean it’s nice of her and it’s not like I don’t want her to cook Paella -"

He paused and shook his head slightly. He was starting to babble again, and he needed to stop, he needed to focus.

He fixed his gaze on Cecil’s eyes and continued, “I’m fine with you being popular like a local celebrity, that’s really cool-“

" _International_  not only _local_ , Carlos!" the other man interrupted him, but he just shrugged and went on.

"International celebrity, okay. But with me - it’s just not who I am, nor who I want to be. I don’t want to be famous, I don’t want to be worshipped. And all I ask for is that you don’t publish every little detail of our lives. People don’t need to know about everything we’re up to, just- leave some things for us."

With the words left his mouth he immediatly felt like he shouldn’t have said it.

Sharing everything he was passionate about with the world was how Cecil chose to live like, after all. And asking for him to change that just because he said so seemed a bit selfish to him.

But, to his relief, Cecil nodded and smiled.

"Okay. I’ll warn you the next time I want to film a room tour, it was kinda rude to just walk in on you like that, sorry." He intertwined their fingers as he added, "And I’ll stop vlogging about the food you cook, I will just- I’ll find something else to film."

"Thanks, Cecil," Carlos said, his voice quiet, almost just a creak, and he leaned down to press a kiss onto his boyfriend’s lips.

The other man pulled him closer by his collar and deepened the kiss. Their mouths were sliding against each other softly, their tongues dancing in a slow rhythm and he felt the familiar tingle in his stomach, like he had swallowed a butterfly that was desperately trying to escape its cage which was his ribs.

But suddenly Cecil pulled away with a gasp.

"Epiphany!" he exclaimed, his eyes darting around. He was thinking.

Carlos smiled patiently, knowing all too well not to disturb him in such a moment, and watched him put his fingers to his lips that were shaped like a perfect ‘o’.

"Okay, you have to help me cook," Cecil explained. "Because _together_ we’ll film an awesome cooking tutorial, I’m sure of it!"

The scientist chuckled and rolled his eyes, but he didn’t protest.

He knew that his boyfriend always tried really hard, he offered his help with experiments or did other things that Carlos didn’t even expect him to do.

And although Cecil had missed his point again, he understood that he was just trying to make a compromise. And he couldn’t see how consenual filming was a bad idea or how some Spanish food could possibly hurt the internet.

"Yeah, okay, we could do that," he replied and saw the other man’s tattoos speed up again, this time in excitement. He got a hasty kiss on his cheek before Cecil left his embrace and scrambled forward to the coffee table where he had put down his camera earlier.

He loved this man more than anything else in the world and being able to make him happy was such a beautiful thing, he found that he didn’t even mind when the radio host picked it up again and filmed both their faces.

"Oh, happy day, listeners! Forget the couch, Carlos just agreed to collaborate in a video with me! Sooo, make sure to go down and hit ‘Subscribe’ to stay tuned the next days, because you don’t want to be missing _that_ , do you?"

 

***

 

Note: If you don't know what the "Youtuber Whispers Challange" is, watch [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRPLvRdUYVg).

 


End file.
